We live in a society that is continuously shocked by revelations of corruption, misconduct of senior officials, mal-performance and poor service delivery. Many of the reported incidents could have best been addressed with a public admission of it and an appropriate, sincere apology. Many of us have forgotten that our business is managing relationships and perceptions; both of which are at the core of this.

The value of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) is widely recognised in terms of the contribution this sector makes to the economy and job creation. It is thus pertinent to ask how ethics fares for SMEs and whether ethics is less relevant for small scale operations.

An argument against following an ethical approach is that SMEs cannot afford the cost and time that this incurs. However this view mostly equates ethics solely with compliance. Legal and regulatory compliance can be burdensome and both the time and cost warrant being minimised. But that should not be confused with running a business ethically, which entails actions and choices that reflect honesty, responsibility, accountability, fairness and respect. Instead, SMEs should view ethics as a strategic advantage that differentiates them from their competitors.

In 2007, marketers new to the social media game were seeking clear cut guidelines for how to get started on their own social efforts. To give those marketers a “social media rules” book, we looked back to an oldie but goodie: the 80/20 rule, this version existed way before social media and marketing as we know it today, and was applied to effort. Someone smart turned the 80/20 rule around and applied it as an easy way to get started on social efforts — a hard and fast way to know how much to talk about our own content while sharing that of others.